Normal
by Lady Salazar
Summary: At a family reunion, a boy who lives in a cupboard meets a boy who turns into a piano. No one in this world is normal. Oneshot HP/SE crossover, set pre-Hogwarts and post-manga.


Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Soul Eater - this is just a short blurb that mostly wrote itself after I finished reading the Soul Eater manga. It's more of a setting piece than anything, and possibly OOC on Soul's and Maka's parts. (I don't quite have a grip on them yet, writing-wise, and viewing them from young!Harry's eyes makes it more difficult.) Any constructive criticism or advice is much appreciated.

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**Normal**

If it wasn't for his name being included on the invitation, Harry thought, he wouldn't be here.

According to Aunt Petunia, it had been ten years since her extended family got together like this, a huge reunion of even third and fourth cousins. The whole thing had started with Harold and Russell Evans, her dad and uncle respectively, when Ross's success as a musician contrasted with Harold's complete lack of talent threatened to estrange the family entirely… so, it became a family habit to only catch up every couple of years, in a large crowd that made it easy to avoid each other.

She figured with her father's death they would've given the thing up, Aunt Petunia explained irritably, but apparently her relatives had too much money and too little sense. And she didn't want to blow it off, because the 'other Evanses' _knew_ people.

That was why the Dursleys were here, in a fine hall lined with filigree and decked with china, with smiles as stiff as their flawlessly starched and pressed clothing. Vernon helped himself to the open bar, while Petunia was approached by a great aunt Francis. Dudley was given a lolly and a promise of more when he got home to behave himself; Harry was given a stern look and a gimlet eye that threatened _any funny business and you won't eat for a week_.

With an eye for a clock to keep track of time, Harry made himself scarce.

He found the pair by chance. The Evans reunion was a cacophony of music: here a flute, there a viola, Wes with his violin and Sidney with her voice, each room on the convention center offering something different. There were plenty of pianos, so it wasn't so much the sound that drew him as the snatches of childish excitement he overheard.

"His leg's a piano!"

"You're a _deathscythe_?"

"That's so cool! Can I see?"

He edged to the doorway as quietly as possible. There was the white-haired piano player, surrounded by a nimbus of smaller kids, some Harry's age, some older. His eyes were closed as if in irritation, but the faintest smirk on his face gave him away as enjoying the attention. There was a girl about his age sitting next to him, her ash-blonde hair in pigtails and a fond smile on her face as she watched. Harry leaned in, interested, as the boy started playing again, fingers a flourish on what should have been his calf.

Harry's mouth opened slightly. The boy's leg from knee down _was_ a piano, or at least a small keyboard. How did he do that? That wasn't normal, and Aunt Petunia said the Evanses were normal.

The girl looked up, and seeing him, her smile broadened. She didn't interrupt the white haired boy by speaking, but gestured for Harry to come in and sit down. Harry did so, slowly, settling into the back rank without making a sound. From this distance, if he squinted, he could make out the girl's nametag: Maka Albarn.

The boy's music was weird, Harry decided as he joined the other kids in clapping when the song was over. It wasn't anything like Aunt Petunia would listen to while he did his chores, let alone anything Dudley played on his boom box. One of the others immediately burst into questions about timing and keys, and Harry had to swallow the lump that appeared in his throat when the white-haired boy looked up –red eyes, he had red eyes.

The boy's nametag had clearly been marked over, but it said Soul Evans beneath the scrawl of black ink. Red eyes and white hair and he turned into a piano and Aunt Petunia called Harry abnormal but the Evanses weren't? Just what was normal?

He listened silently to the others as time passed, trying not to let his upset show, until Miss Albarn looked at the clock and said they needed to be heading to the dining room. Harry waited until the others had filed out before following, starting when she fell into step beside him.

"It was very courteous of you to be quiet while Soul was playing," she said quietly, giving him a smile. "I'm Maka Albarn. What's your name?"

Harry quashed the desire to stare at his shoes and not answer. It would be rude, and Miss Albarn was only being nice. "I'm Harry Potter. It's nice to meet you."

Miss Albarn returned the pleasantry, and then continued, "It looked like you had some questions you wanted to ask. Do you feel more comfortable without the crowd? I can answer them, if you want."

Harry flashed a look of shock at her, caught himself, and redirected the look to his feet. He did have questions. The problem was that asking questions was just borrowing trouble. Aunt Petunia hated them, wouldn't answer any since he had worked up the courage to ask where he had gotten his scar, but… "He changed," Harry said finally. A person, then a piano leg. "How did he do that?"

"Have you heard of Demon Weapons?" she asked. Harry nodded, putting two and two together but now wondering when a piano became a weapon. Miss Albarn must have noticed or guessed his thoughts, because she laughed. "Soul is a scythe weapon. He just has a little more control over his transformation than most because he's a full Death Scythe."

"So he just… sees himself differently?"

Miss Albarn nodded. "That's part of it. Visualizing the weapon instead of the human form is the first step to a full weapon transformation."

By this point they had arrived at the dining hall, so Harry thanked Miss Albarn for answering his question and went in search of his relatives, since they were arranged to sit together. During the meal, Harry found himself repeatedly craning his neck to see Miss Albarn and Mr. Soul. Aunt Petunia noticed, but her admonishment to stop gawking made great aunt Francis, sitting across from them, laugh.

"You can hardly blame the boy for staring, Petunia." Seeing she had their attention, Francis took a swallow of wine and explained. "That's the younger of Ross's boys, Soul. He's the one that ran off to Death City right after the last reunion to become a Death Scythe. Supposedly he'll be the last of them, what with this treaty with the witches."

Harry frowned in confusion.

"Ninety-nine fallen human souls and one witch soul," said Aunt Petunia. There was something in her tone that made Harry look up at her warily, but it was subtle enough for the slightly inebriated Francis to not notice. She stared back at him, eyes shuttered, and finally snorted. "We'll see how long the witches stick to their word."

A couple of hours later, after the best meal Harry had ever had, a couple of short speeches, and a modest drive, the Dursleys and their nephew pulled back into Number Four, Privet Drive. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon talked in a loud voice about the lovely gala they'd just attended, the Evans family reunion you know, yes _those_ Evanses, and as they entered the house Harry was lead to and locked into his cupboard for the night since he had already eaten.

Harry sat in the dark cupboard, staring down at the shadows in his lap. He could hear his aunt and uncle gossiping in the living room, something about how it wasn't right that the Evanses were so well-to-do when they didn't have real jobs like normal people. The conversation and the past day made him think.

Harry raised his arm so that the light that spilled through the slats in the cupboard door fell upon it. The rays played upon the reflective surface and a wickedly sharp edge shone, before he closed his eyes, opened them again, and all there was was pale skin. Then blade again.

Normal people don't sleep in cupboards, Harry admitted to himself. If he wasn't normal, then he would decide what kind of not normal he would be.


End file.
